'"The fans here accepted me very early in my career, and I believe the fans make the player," Ray said. "So I want to thank you, the fans. If you didn't accept me years and years ago, I probably wouldn't be here right now. I've probably had the opportunity to have a beer with half the people in this arena. Now that I'm retired I'm going to try and get to the rest of you."'

'"We played great for two periods," he said. "We have to learn not to ease up. That cost us with Calgary [a 3-2 loss] and a few other games. We've got to stop doing that if we want to make the playoffs."'

'"He's not in Montreal," said agent David Schatia, who lives and works in Montreal. "Never was. He wants to get away to somewhere that he can focus on his workouts and practicing and getting razor-sharp so he's ready if and when he comes back."'

'"I was looking at the teams we had to play and (the Sabres) were playing well and I thought, 'Oh, my God, this is going to be a tough trip for us,' " Wild coach Jacques Lemaire said. "But it turned out to be nice to get two out of three."'

'Filip Kuba, one of Gaborik's closest friends on the team, said he spoke to him after Saturday's game at Tampa, Fla., and had no inclination he had fired off a statement declaring he was leaving. "No clue," Kuba said.'

'By Reinprecht's estimate, he was a member of the Sabres for 7 minutes before Buffalo traded him to Calgary for Chris Drury, a former Colorado teammate, and Steve Begin. "I didn't quite see that one coming," Reinprecht said. "You expect to be traded maybe once in a day, not twice, so it was pretty funny."'

'Minnesota went 2-for-4 on the power play and scored while down a man in perhaps its best performance of the young season. “We were happy that (Buffalo) had a little letdown, but you have to give us some credit as well,'' Walz said.'

'The Sabres 3-game winning streak came to an end on Tuesday night at the Arena with a 3-1 loss to the Minnesota Wild. Buffalo returned home after playing six straight road games, the longest road trip in team history.'